Brief break from covid: @bordnerautumn, fellow at @BerkeleyLawCLEE, lawyer at @blueoceanlaw & co-founder of @amp_micronesia, is taking over our Twitter today to teach us about U.S. #nucleartesting in the Marshall Islands & how RadWatch can help address the nuclear legacy.

From 1946 to 1958, the U.S. tested 67 #nuclearweapons in the Marshall Islands—the equivalent of 1.2 #Hiroshima -sized bombs detonated every day for a year.

Two inhabited atolls, Bikini and Enewetak, were selected as ground zero for the testing program. Communities were forced to evacuate their homelands “for the good of mankind,” while U.S. officials celebrated #nuclear testing in the islands by cutting into a #mushroomcloud cake.

During the testing period, the U.S. administered the islands as a non-self-governing territory through the @UN. As administering authority, the U.S. “accepted as a sacred trust” obligations to protect the health & welfare & promote the #selfdetermination of the Marshallese people

Instead, the U.S. testing program caused severe #health and #environmental damage throughout the Marshall Islands, necessitating further forced #migration and ripping apart the fabric of Marshallese society. Learn more from @kathykijiner:

Marshallese people were also enrolled in Project 4.1—a nonconsensual human medical experiment undertaken to study the effects of radiation on the body. One official noted that Marshallese were ideal test subjects because “they are more like us than mice.”

The U.S. has not cleaned contaminated islands or adequately compensated Marshallese for their suffering. In the early 2000s, after decades of litigation, Marshallese received judgments holding the U.S. liable for $2 billion The U.S. has not paid this money.

Now a sovereign nation, the Marshall Islands continues to grapple with the legacy of U.S. #nucleartesting. Marshallese have not been given sufficient data about the #radiation in their #environment. Some communities remain in exile while others live in places they fear are unsafe

The people of Enewetak have been resettled on one cleaned island within their contaminated atoll. That atoll is also home to the Runit Dome, a leaking #nuclearwaste repository. #ClimateChange is expected to exacerbate leakage. https://www.latimes.com/projects/marshall-islands-nuclear-testing-sea-level-rise/
@susrust @carolyn_cole

More broadly, #ClimateChange existentially threatens the low-lying Marshall Islands; w/o adaption the islands are predicted to be lost to rising seas by 2050, necessitating a population-scale forced #climate #migration.

The legacy of U.S. #nuclear testing and #colonialism directly impedes adaptation that could enable the islands' survival. Tune in for my next thread later today to learn more! If you can’t wait, check out my paper in @HRLROnline @Columbia: http://hrlr.law.columbia.edu/hrlr/climate-migration-self-determination/